Thinking About Giri Tikku

During the summer of 1974 I was pregnant with our son, Tom, and also had the joy of being Mommy to our sweet darling two and a half year old year old, Krista.  We lived in Married Student Housing at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  An international community where we enjoyed living very much, that summer we were blessed to have the company of a visiting professor and Kashmiri poet and his family living  in our apartment block.

Dr. Girdhari L. Tikku (Giri) and his wife, Rima, were very lovely people.  We enjoyed getting to know them a great deal.  Kashmir was a very romantic place to me, and I never before had met a real poet in person.  The joy of hearing about their Himalayan home and finding out about their culture enriched our experiences with them.  In addition, an American friend was working on a Ph.D. in Sanskrit literature.  We often saw Giri and him walking toward campus together, one tall blond American head bowed toward the head of darker hair, both deep in conversation.

Giri's wife, Rima, always had a gentle smile.  She was kind to all of us young mothers, offering encouragement or just listening to our news about the latest accomplishments of our children.  More experienced than most of us, she could still identify with us because their youngest daughter was seven or eight, if I remember correctly.

One day several months ago I thought of Giri and Rima and looked them up on an internet search engine.  Delighted to read that they came back to stay at the U of I some time after that sojourn as a Visiting Professor in the '74-'75 academic year, I was also sad to find out that Giri has passed away. 

Nevertheless, thinking about the Tikkus brought back a special memory of that summer thirty-five years ago.  I was feeling very ungainly and unlovely in the last months of my pregnancy (Tom was born on September 19th).  Champaign-Urbana is a hot and muggy place in the summer, too.  Wonderful for the crops -- hot house effect and all that . . . but not my favorite kind of weather and a trial for a very pregnant woman.

One morning when he was on the way to campus, Giri saw me out walking with Krista and came over to greet me.  After a short chat, Krista was pulling my hand toward the playground, so I said good-bye to that kind man.

Somehow his poet's heart must have recognized how I was feeling in my waddling, uncomfortable condition, although I'm sure I was too shy to have indicated my pregnancy hormone-driven emotions through words.

As I hurried after Krista heading full-tilt toward the sandbox, Giri quietly imparted these kind words to me, "You have never been more beautiful than you are right now."

This once young woman, only 21 years old, blushed and turned away.  But I never forgot his kindness. 

Giri came to my mind again today -- perhaps because of the new babies in our family.  Wanting to share this with you, I looked for a web page with a tribute to him and found one of his poems:

In the anguish of joy
create
and be a witness
and see
how one can
and be
one and two . . .
and nothing
and all the thing
and beyond
the form and yet
the form.

And speak with dance
dance of eyes.
and shape forms.
circles, squares;
and confuse shapes
geometry; and
call the bluff
for they say one can't
but in shape be.


Girdhari Tikku (Dr. G.L. Tikku)

http://www.koausa.org/Tributes/Tikku.html



Kathleen Ware Harris  © 2013
kwharris777@gmail.com